Brian Williams Rips Me

Nov 2, 2012

RUSH: I’ll tell you something else that’s happening in the Northeast, this hurricane aftermath. I must be honest here. This is not something I derive a lot of pleasure in saying, but people up there are gonna learn that the collective doesn’t get it done. Government isn’t gonna get your gas can filled. It isn’t gonna happen. I wonder how many of them expected major progress toward resolution of their problems by now. The hurricane hit Monday, I wonder how many people are shocked and surprised that it isn’t getting any better. In fact, it may be worsening, despite the fact the president came into town. The president flew in, isn’t that supposed to mean something?

The president came in and met the governor of New Jersey, and, oh, folks, you want to hear something funny? The other day on this program when I was the talking about Christie and Obama getting together, and this is hilarious, Christie and Obama get together and I’m using my line that Christie is playing the role of a Greek column for Obama, and they’re walking around, and I said, “Is it wrong for one man to love another?” Let me tell you where that comes from. I play golf, and one of the guys I play, we’re teamed up, playing twosome, you pair up and you play against the other in the foursome. I got this one guy when I sink a putt or I do something that wins the hole, he comes up and hugs me, “Is it wrong to love another man?” It’s just a way to say, “Way to go.” There’s nothing gay about it. These people think I’m making gay allegations.

(interruption)

It’s a Seinfeld line? Well, I never watch Seinfeld. Sorry. I never watched it. I didn’t watch M*A*S*H, either. I know people think it’s sacrilegious that I never watched M*A*S*H. I saw maybe two episodes. I liked the movie so much. If the people in the movie were not gonna be in the TV show, I didn’t want to watch it. That was my reaction. I mean, how do you replace “Hot Lips” Houlihan from the movie? You can’t.

At any rate, I don’t want to get sidetracked here. There was no gay reference. It’s just a little private joke with a friend of mine, “Is it wrong to love another man?” He’s just happy I’d sunk a putt, won the hole or what have you. And here Brian Williams apparently, I thought Brian Williams liked me. Apparently he doesn’t anymore because he’s on Rock Center or whatever that show he has on primetime last night, and he ripped Michael Brown, the FEMA guy for Bush, and then he ripped me. He got on me for my line about Christie playing the role of a Greek column for Obama in the thralls of man love. These guys live such cloistered lives they rip me for that, and then he ripped me for being against bipartisanship, and “leave it to Rush Limbaugh to be the only guy in America who doesn’t like the fact that the governor of New Jersey had something good to say about the president of the United States.”

And then Chris Matthews over on MSNBC said I reminded him of one of the doofuses in deliverance. So the fact that I didn’t buy into this just irritates them all to hell. Now, we have to correctly identify bipartisanship to understand these people. So here it is. Brian Williams: “So after all this loss you might be curious as to why Rush Limbaugh went after Gov. Christie today. It was because he was getting along so well with the president, working together, saying nice things about Barack Obama. Just when we think the storm wiped away everything, we learned politics survived.”

Brian, come on, what do you think the stroll on the beach with Obama and Christie was? It was politics. Why do you think Obama called Christie, wanted to go into town? It was politics. See, this is the thing. Do you want to get down to brass tacks? Do you want to talk real about this? The way for a governor or president to handle this is with substance, not, what’s the phrase I used to say? Symbolism over substance. Walking the beach accomplished what? Hugging the woman… no, folks, stick with me on here. You know, I live in Realville. Hugging the woman accomplished what? In terms of the expressed purpose for all this happening.

Real leadership would have been Christie and Obama and whoever else gathering in a command center and coordinating relief efforts with them not on the scene. You take these guys anywhere — this is why Bloomberg, in a rare moment of sanity, said “no” to Obama when he asked to come to town. (imitating Bloomberg) “Look, if you show up here, I have to allocate security resources. I’ve gotta get cars that I don’t have. I’ve gotta get highway patrol. I gotta get a security detail for you. We’ve gotta plan logistics. You’ll just get in the way here. It’s not that we don’t love you, Mr. Obama, you’ll just get in the way here.”

What was happening there was style. What was happening there was symbolism. And it didn’t accomplish anything. Not for the residents. It did accomplish things for Obama, big whoop. And, by the way, if you doubt me, what was the press reaction after this? How did this help Obama? Not, is this going to help people who don’t have fuel? Is this gonna help people that don’t have homes with electricity? That question wasn’t even asked. It’s not being asked today. The question’s still being asked, “Did it help Obama? Did it help Christie? Is it the reason why Obama got a bump in the polls?” Somebody even said, “Maybe Obama tied Rasmussen today because he had a bump coming out of Sandy.” Obama doesn’t deserve a bump coming out of Sandy; he hasn’t done anything. Is this too hard hitting?

Am I being too…? (interruption) But bipartisanship? There wasn’t any bipartisanship going on. To Brian Williams and to Tom Brokaw and whoever else — to all of NBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, and the New York Times — the definition of bipartisanship is what? It’s “When any Republican sacrifices his beliefs and agrees with a Democrat, or when a Republican throws everything aside and makes a Democrat look good.”

That is how the press defines bipartisanship. Bipartisanship must require Republican caving (in one way or the other) or indoctrinating themselves one way or the other, or giving up something they believe in one way or the other. That’s bipartisanship. And so bipartisanship here was Governor Christie, a week before the election, essentially endorsing Obama.

Well, in my book that’s not bipartisanship. There’s another word for it, and it ain’t bipartisan, but it is from their perspective. Governor Christie just basically said, “To hell with you, Mitt! I’m throwing in with Obama right now.” That’s great bipartisanship as far as they’re concerned. Well, it’s not in my book. So they’re all upset with me because they think I was…? Does anybody really believe…?

I mean, you have Barack Obama and Christie.

Does anybody think those two are gonna get married someday soon?

I mean, let’s get real here now.

“Is it wrong to love another man?”

It’s just… (interruption) Well, but forget Michelle. Just the optics. They were stretching to believe what they wanted to believe. They’re stretching. But that wasn’t bipartisanship, and it wasn’t progress. Look, we’ve got some sound bites here from people on Staten Island: “Mr. Obama, please help us! Where are you?” He’s in Vegas or wherever. He’s campaigning! In fact, I got an e-mail from a friend last night. I don’t watch the nightly news anymore because, you know, I don’t need to go to museums. And that’s what the nightly news is. It’s a museum.

So I got a note from a friend, “You won’t believe what I just saw on the nightly news!”

I said, “What?”

“Pictures of people suffering in Staten Island, and Dumpster diving for food in Queens! New Yorkers, Americans, are in line at gas stations with their little gas cans, Dumpster diving and pleading for help. And the next picture was Obama smiling and laughing and yukking it up getting off of Air Force One at a campaign appearance.”

I said, “So?”

He said, “Well, the media’s showing that side by side. That’s what they usually do to Republicans.”

I had to admit, he had a point. I didn’t see it. I said, “Are you just seeing something you want to see?”

And he said, “No, no, no! I didn’t see it, either. I’m having people flash me about it.”

So apparently it is a widely held view among the people that watched it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I mentioned Brian Williams in the beginning of the program. He said some really typically uninformed things last night on Rock Center, and I had some responses to it. I always thought Brian — H.R., you back me up on this. Every time we’ve been around Brian Williams, he’s nice as he can be, he’s funny, he’s been respectful, but something’s happened to NBC. Not just MSNBC, but something happened to that whole umbrella NBC network. He raked me over the coals yesterday for having a little fun with Obama and Christie and claiming that I’m not in favor of bipartisan. I got a lot of e-mails from people, “You know, Rush, you didn’t really deal with that strongly enough. You laughed about it.” Well, that’s what I do with most of them.

A lot of people said, “You know, you just can’t let that stuff go by uncommented on. If you’re gonna comment on it, you gotta go all the way.”

All right. Fine. Brian Williams, since you saw fit to misrepresent me on your great show last night, let me ask you, Brian, have you watched your network lately? Have you watched your sister or brother, whichever network it is, MSNBC, lately? I mean, you guys have your own mess to kind of clean up there. You and your colleagues, you’re not only destroying news and journalism in this country, you’re not even doing your job. Does Benghazi ring a bell to any of you at NBC? Does the name alert you to anything? I know it’s not as cool as Iran-Contra or Watergate or Katrina — those all involve Republicans — but, you know, Brian, four Americans died, as it turns out, unnecessarily. They were murdered, Brian, and people are trying to get answers, and NBC doesn’t care.

In fact, NBC is helping to cover it up. Did you ever think that you’d be compared to Woodward and Bernstein helping Nixon cover up Watergate? Because that’s what NBC’s doing, and they’re not alone. ABC is also doing everything it can to keep Benghazi out of the public realm. Neither your Nightly News show, your network, sister network seem to care about this. You certainly aren’t investigating it like a handful of journalists in this country are. And look how you think Obama and Christie get along on the big issue. But this isn’t about politicians getting along for 90 minutes or 48 hours. This is about getting help to people. It’s about getting help to people fast. It’s not about whether or not the appearance on a beach for a half hour helps Obama. It shouldn’t have been about that. But it is to the folks at NBC. “How does this help Obama going out there with Christie?” It’s not what this is about.